BT Phone Book to be printed in Spain

Some 180 jobs are at risk at a printers in Essex following BT's decision to shunt the printing of its phone book to Spain.

The Independent reports that Colchester-based Benhamgoodheadprint (BGP) - which has printed 22m copies a year of The Phone Book since 1998 - was unable to compete on price.

The printing firm cannot rule out job cuts even though it is busy trying to find work to fill the hole left by BT's decision to award the contract to an overseas company.

The new contract - awarded to Spanish company EINSA, which already prints phone directories for France Telecom and Telefonica - begins in March.

In a statement BT told us: "We can confirm that BGP will no longer be manufacturing The Phone Book from BT.

"The new contract has been awarded to the Spanish company EINSA (EINSA Print International.) This includes the printing and production of all BT's 171 UK local directories," it said.

A spokesman for BGP told El Reg that the firm was "tremendously disappointed" by BT's decision to award the contract overseas.

Last month BT pulled the plug on a contract with IT services company ClientLogic, whose staff had manned BT's broadband technical helpdesk for all consumer and business customers for the last five years. Instead, BT awarded the contract to HCL in India because it represented the "best value for money". ®